1) Icebreaker2)Our first task3)Some principles4)Some examples

Icebreaker:

Who is your favorite TV character?

Mine:

While we will only be shooting some of the video for this project ourselves, I want us to think carefully about how to shoot video.

There are some major considerations you have to take. For this project, you will pair up and record a 2-3 minute chunk of raw video interviewing your partner.

You must consider the following five criteria, as each will be 10 points of your project grade:

• 10 points: The Rule of Thirds• 10 points: Lighting• 10 points: Sound• 10 points: Steady as it goes• 10 points: Backdrop

First up: The Rule of Thirds

Basically, the rule of thirds states that everything exists on a nine x nine grid. You want your important elements on, or close to, lines of the grid with the most important thing at an intersection between two of the lines.

Let me show you.

This is some poor guy I found on Google.Well, not poor guy, but poorly framed. See how he’s in the middle of the frame?

Look at all this wasted space

Look at all this wasted spaceLook at all this wasted space

Look at all this wasted space

Here’s a good photo.

A good picture…

Why is it good?Because your eyes are drawn to the

intersection points of the grid.

I had you read about lighting. For us, lighting can be tricky, as we’re not going to usually have the power to put people in front of a lighting rig like what you read about. But we need to be very considerate of how things are lit well. Usually, when recording video, you get one shot.

A few things to remember, when shooting film. Two things of late have caused us to have problems with understandings of lighting:1) Instagram filters2) HBO series style “dark” filming in features

The goal of lighting in video is first and foremost to make things visible. We’re not trying, as such, to be artistic with over or underexposure when shooting docu-film.

The second goal is to make the person look as good as you can without manipulating into brightness or darkness so far that we lose that visibility.

SOUND!!!!

Sometimes we get so worried about our visuals that we forget that with video, we have sound.

If your sound is bad, you can’t go get it later.

You probably need an external microphone.

Steady

You should use a tripod whenever you can.When you can’t, there are some tricks. I’ll show you now.

No laughing! :P

The next thing to think about is your backdrop. Often when we’re centered on a person who is speaking, we forget to think through what is behind the person.

Bring headphones to the next class. If you have a phone or iPad that will record video, bring that, too.

Read the first section of the Adobe Premiere Classroom in a Box (overview and 1).